Brahmic family of scripts

This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida (alphabetic-syllabary) writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent. They are used by languages of several linguistic families: Indo-European, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austro-Asiatic, Austronesian, Tai, and possibly Korean (hangul). They were also the source of the dictionary order of Japanese kana.

History

An inscription in Old Tamil script (Vatteluttu) from the Later Chola period, circa 11th century AD. Old Tamil is a direct descendant of the Brahmi writing system

Brahmic scripts are descended from the Brahmi script. Brahmi is clearly attested from the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka, who used the script for imperial edicts, but there are some recent finds of earlier epigraphy in Tamil-Brahmi writing found on pottery in South India and Sri Lanka, dating back to the 6th century BCE or even earlier. Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupta period, which in turn diversified into a number of cursives during the Middle Ages, including Siddham, Sharada and Nagari.

The Siddham (kanji: 悉曇, modern Japanese pronunciation: shittan) script was especially important in Buddhism because many sutras were written in it, and the art of Siddham calligraphy survives today in Japan. The syllabic nature and dictionary order of the modern kana system of Japanese writing is believed to be descended from the Indic scripts, most likely through the spread of Buddhism.¹

Southern Brahmi evolved into the Grantha script among others, which in turn diversified into numerous scripts of Southeast Asia.

Bhattiprolu was a great centre of Buddhism during 3rd century CE and from where Buddhism spread to east Asia. The present Telugu script is derived from Bhattiprolu Script or 'Kannada-Telugu script', also known as 'old Kannada script', owing to its similarity to the same²³.

Initially, minor changes were made which is now called Tamil brahmi which has far fewer letters than some of the other Indic scripts as it has no separate aspirated or voiced consonants. Later under the influence of Granta vetteluthu evolved which looks similar to present day Malayalam script. Still further changes were made in 19th and 20th centuries to make use of printing and typewriting needs before we have the present script.

Gari Ledyard has hypothesized that the hangul script used to write Korean is based on the Mongol 'Phags-pa script, a descendant of the Brahmic family via Tibetan.

Characteristics

Some characteristics, which may not be present in all the scripts are:

• Each consonant has an inherent vowel which is usually short 'a' (in Bengali, Oriya, and Assamese, it is short 'ô' due to sound shifts). Other vowels are written by adding to the character. A mark, known in Sanskrit as a virama/halant can be used to indicate the absence of an inherent vowel.
• Each vowel has two forms, an independent form when not part of a consonant, and a dependent form, when attached to a consonant. Depending on the script, the dependent forms can be either placed to the left of, to the right of, above, below, or on both the left and the right sides of the base consonant.
• Consonants (up to 5 in Devanagari) can be combined in ligatures. Special marks are added to denote the combination of 'r' with another consonant.
• Nasalization and aspiration of a consonant's dependent vowel is also noted by separate signs.
• The traditional ordering can be summarized as follows: vowels, velar consonants, palatal consonants, retroflex consonants, dental consonants, bilabial consonants, approximants, sibilants, and other consonants. Each consonant grouping had four consonants (with all four possible values of voicing and aspiration), and a nasalised consonant.

Comparison

Below are comparison charts of several of the major Indic scripts; transliteration is indicated in ISO 15919; pronunciation is indicated in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Pronunciation is taken from Sanskrit where possible, but other languages where necessary. These lists are not comprehensive; some glyphs are unrepresented. Some pronunciations may be inaccurate or different from the ones listed, partly because the graphemically corresponding glyphs listed in the same column are not necessarily phonetically identical.

Consonants

ISO	k	kh	g	gh	ṅ	c	ch	j	jh	ñ	ṭ	ṭh	ḍ	ḍh	ṇ	t	th	d	dh	n	ṉ	p	ph	b	bh	m	y	r	ṟ	l	ḷ	ḻ	v	ś	ṣ	s	h
IPA	k	kʰ	ɡ	ɡʱ	ŋ	c	cʰ	ɟ	ɟʱ	ɲ	ʈ	ʈʰ	ɖ	ɖʱ	ɳ	t̪	t̪ʰ	d̪	d̪ʱ	n̪	n	p	pʰ	b	bʱ	m	j	r	ɾ	l	ɭ	ɻ	ʋ	ʃ	ʂ	s	ɦ
Oriya	କ	ଖ	ଗ	ଘ	ଙ	ଚ	ଛ	ଜ	ଝ	ଞ	ଟ	ଠ	ଡ	ଢ	ଣ	ତ	ଥ	ଦ	ଧ	ନ		ପ	ଫ	ବ	ଭ	ମ	ଯ	ର		ଲ	ଳ		ଵ	ଶ	ଷ	ସ	ହ
E. Nagari	ক	খ	গ	ঘ	ঙ	চ	ছ	জ	ঝ	ঞ	ট	ঠ	ড	ঢ	ণ	ত	থ	দ	ধ	ন		প	ফ	ব	ভ	ম	য	র/ৰ		ল			ৱ	শ	ষ	স	হ
Devanagari	क	ख	ग	घ	ङ	च	छ	ज	झ	ञ	ट	ठ	ड	ढ	ण	त	थ	द	ध	न	ऩ	प	फ	ब	भ	म	य	र	ऱ	ल	ळ	ऴ	व	श	ष	स	ह
Gujarati	ક	ખ	ગ	ઘ	ઙ	ચ	છ	જ	ઝ	ઞ	ટ	ઠ	ડ	ઢ	ણ	ત	થ	દ	ધ	ન		પ	ફ	બ	ભ	મ	ય	ર		લ	ળ		વ	શ	ષ	સ	હ
Gurmukhi	ਕ	ਖ	ਗ	ਘ	ਙ	ਚ	ਛ	ਜ	ਝ	ਞ	ਟ	ਠ	ਡ	ਢ	ਣ	ਤ	ਥ	ਦ	ਧ	ਨ		ਪ	ਫ	ਬ	ਭ	ਮ	ਯ	ਰ		ਲ	ਲ਼		ਵ	ਸ਼		ਸ	ਹ
Tibetan	ཀ	ཁ	ག		ང	ཅ	ཆ	ཇ		ཉ	ཊ	ཋ	ཌ		ཎ	ཏ	ཐ	ད		ན		པ	ཕ	བ		མ	ཡ	ར		ལ			ཝ	ཤ	ཥ	ས	ཧ
Brahmi
Telugu	క	ఖ	గ	ఘ	ఙ	చ	ఛ	జ	ఝ	ఞ	ట	ఠ	డ	ఢ	ణ	త	థ	ద	ధ	న		ప	ఫ	బ	భ	మ	య	ర	ఱ	ల	ళ		వ	శ	ష	స	హ
Kannada	ಕ	ಖ	ಗ	ಘ	ಙ	ಚ	ಛ	ಜ	ಝ	ಞ	ಟ	ಠ	ಡ	ಢ	ಣ	ತ	ಥ	ದ	ಧ	ನ		ಪ	ಫ	ಬ	ಭ	ಮ	ಯ	ರ	ಱ	ಲ	ಳ	ೞ	ವ	ಶ	ಷ	ಸ	ಹ
Sinhala	ක	ඛ	ග	ඝ	ඞ	ච	ඡ	ජ	​ඣ​	ඤ	ට	ඨ	ඩ	ඪ	ණ	ත	ථ	ද	ධ	න		ප	ඵ	බ	භ	ම	ය	ර		ල	ළ		ව	ශ	ෂ	ස	හ
Malayalam	ക	ഖ	ഗ	ഘ	ങ	ച	ഛ	ജ	ഝ	ഞ	ട	ഠ	ഡ	ഢ	ണ	ത	ഥ	ദ	ധ	ന		പ	ഫ	ബ	ഭ	മ	യ	ര	റ	ല	ള	ഴ	വ	ശ	ഷ	സ	ഹ
Tamil	க				ங	ச		ஜ		ஞ	ட				ண	த				ந	ன	ப				ம	ய	ர	ற	ல	ள	ழ	வ	ஶ	ஷ	ஸ	ஹ
Burmese	က	ခ	ဂ	ဃ	င	စ	ဆ	ဇ	ဈ	ဉ/ည	ဋ	ဌ	ဍ	ဎ	ဏ	တ	ထ	ဒ	ဓ	န		ပ	ဖ	ဗ	ဘ	မ	ယ	ရ		လ	ဠ	ၔ	ဝ	ၐ	ၑ	သ	ဟ
Khmer	ក	ខ	គ	ឃ	ង	ច	ឆ	ជ	ឈ	ញ	ដ	ឋ	ឌ	ឍ	ណ	ត	ថ	ទ	ធ	ន		ប	ផ	ព	ភ	ម	យ	រ		ល	ឡ		វ	ឝ	ឞ	ស	ហ
Thai	ก	ข	ค	ฆ	ง	จ	ฉ	ช	ฌ	ญ	ฏ	ฐ	ฑ	ฒ	ณ	ต	ถ	ท	ธ	น		ป	ผ	พ	ภ	ม	ย	ร		ล	ฬ		ว	ศ	ษ	ส	ห
Lao	ກ	ຂ		ຄ	ງ	ຈ	ສ	ຊ		ຍ						ຕ	ຖ	ທ		ນ		ປ	ຜ	ຟ	ພ	ມ	ຢ	ຣ		ລ			ວ				ຫ
Balinese	ᬓ	ᬔ	ᬕ	ᬖ	ᬗ	ᬘ	ᬙ	ᬚ	ᬛ	ᬜ	ᬝ	ᬞ	ᬟ	ᬠ	ᬡ	ᬢ	ᬣ	ᬤ	ᬥ	ᬦ		ᬧ	ᬨ	ᬩ	ᬪ	ᬫ	ᬬ	ᬭ		ᬮ			ᬯ	ᬰ	ᬱ	ᬲ	ᬳ
Baybayin	ᜃ		ᜄ		ᜅ											ᜆ		ᜇ		ᜈ		ᜉ		ᜊ		ᜋ	ᜌ	ᜇ		ᜎ						ᜐ	ᜑ

Vowels

Vowels are presented in their independent form on the left of each column, and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant k on the right. A glyph for ka is an independent consonant letter itself without any vowel sign, where the vowel a is inherent.

ISO	a		ā		æ		ǣ		i		ī		u		ū		e		ē		ai		o		ō		au		r̥		r̥̄		l̥		l̥̄
IPA	ə		ɑː		æ		æː		i		iː		u		uː		e		eː		əi		o		oː		əu		r̩		r̩ː		l̩		l̩ː
Oriya	ଅ	କ	ଆ	କା					ଇ	କି	ଈ	କୀ	ଉ	କୁ	ଊ	କୂ			ଏ	କେ	ଐ	କୈ			ଓ	କୋ	ଔ	କୌ	ଋ	କୃ	ୠ	କୄ	ଌ	କୢ	ୡ	କୣ
E. Nagari	অ	ক	আ	কা	অ্যা				ই	কি	ঈ	কী	উ	কু	ঊ	কূ			এ	কে	ঐ	কৈ			ও	কো	ঔ	কৌ	ঋ	কৃ	ৠ	কৄ	ঌ	কৢ	ৡ	কৣ
Devanagari	अ	क	आ	का	अॅ	कॅ	ऑ	कॉ	इ	कि	ई	की	उ	कु	ऊ	कू	ऎ	कॆ	ए	के	ऐ	कै	ऒ	कॊ	ओ	को	औ	कौ	ऋ	कृ	ॠ	कॄ	ऌ	कॢ	ॡ	कॣ
Gujarati	અ	ક	આ	કા					ઇ	કિ	ઈ	કી	ઉ	કુ	ઊ	કૂ			એ	કે	ઐ	કૈ			ઓ	કો	ઔ	કૌ	ઋ	કૃ	ૠ	કૄ	ઌ	કૢ	ૡ	કૣ
Gurmukhi	ਅ	ਕ	ਆ	ਕਾ					ਇ	ਕਿ	ਈ	ਕੀ	ਉ	ਕੁ	ਊ	ਕੂ			ਏ	ਕੇ	ਐ	ਕੈ			ਓ	ਕੋ	ਔ	ਕੌ
Tibetan	ཨ	ཀ	ཨཱ	ཀཱ					ཨི	ཀི	ཨཱི	ཀཱི	ཨུ	ཀུ	ཨཱུ	ཀཱུ			ཨེ	ཀེ	ཨཻ	ཀཻ			ཨོ	ཀོ	ཨཽ	ཀཽ	རྀ	ཀྲྀ	རཱྀ	ཀཷ	ལྀ	ཀླྀ	ལཱྀ	ཀླཱྀ
Brahmi
Telugu	అ	క	ఆ	కా					ఇ	కి	ఈ	కీ	ఉ	కు	ఊ	కూ	ఎ	కె	ఏ	కే	ఐ	కై	ఒ	కొ	ఓ	కో	ఔ	కౌ	ఋ	కృ	ౠ	కౄ	ఌ	కౢ	ౡ	కౣ
Kannada	ಅ	ಕ	ಆ	ಕಾ					ಇ	ಕಿ	ಈ	ಕೀ	ಉ	ಕು	ಊ	ಕೂ	ಎ	ಕೆ	ಏ	ಕೇ	ಐ	ಕೈ	ಒ	ಕೊ	ಓ	ಕೋ	ಔ	ಕೌ	ಋ	ಕೃ	ೠ	ಕೄ	ಌ	ಕೢ	ೡ	ಕೣ
Sinhala	අ	ක	ආ	කා	ඇ	කැ	ඈ	කෑ	ඉ	කි	ඊ	කී	උ	කු	ඌ	කූ	එ	කෙ	ඒ	කේ	ඓ	කෛ	ඔ	කො	ඕ	කෝ	ඖ	කෞ	ඍ	කෘ	ඎ	කෲ	ඏ	කෟ	ඐ	කෳ
Malayalam	അ	ക	ആ	കാ					ഇ	കി	ഈ	കീ	ഉ	കു	ഊ	കൂ	എ	കെ	ഏ	കേ	ഐ	കൈ	ഒ	കൊ	ഓ	കോ	ഔ	കൗ	ഋ	കൃ	ൠ	കൄ	ഌ	കൢ	ൡ	കൣ
Tamil	அ	க	ஆ	கா					இ	கி	ஈ	கீ	உ	கு	ஊ	கூ	எ	கெ	ஏ	கே	ஐ	கை	ஒ	கொ	ஓ	கோ	ஔ	கௌ
Burmese	အ	က	အာ	ကာ					ဣ	ကိ	ဤ	ကီ	ဥ	ကု	ဦ	ကူ	ဧ	ကေ	အေး	ကေး			ဩ	ကော			ဪ	ကော်	ၒ	ကၖ	ၓ	ကၗ	ၔ	ကၘ	ၕ	ကၙ
Khmer	ឣ	ក	ឤ	កា					ឥ	កិ	ឦ	កី	ឧ	កុ	ឩ	កូ			ឯ	កេ	ឰ	កៃ			ឱ	កោ	ឳ	កៅ	ឫ	ក្ឫ	ឬ	ក្ឬ	ឭ	ក្ឭ	ឮ	ក្ឮ
Thai	อะ	ก	อา	กา					อิ	กิ	อี	กี	อุ	กุ	อู	กู			เ	กเ	อาย	กาย			อโ	กโ	อาว	กาว	อฤ	กฤ	อฤๅ	กฤๅ	อฦ	กฦ	อฦๅ	กฦๅ
Balinese	ᬅ	ᬓ	ᬆ	ᬓᬵ					ᬇ	ᬓᬶ	ᬈ	ᬓᬷ	ᬉ	ᬓᬸ	ᬊ	ᬓᬹ			ᬏ	ᬓᬾ	ᬐ	ᬓᬿ			ᬑ	ᬓᭀ	ᬒ	ᬓᭁ	ᬋ	ᬓᬺ	ᬌ	ᬓᬻ	ᬍ	ᬓᬼ	ᬎ	ᬓᬽ
Baybayin	ᜀ								ᜁ	ᜃᜒ			ᜂ	ᜃᜓ			ᜁ	ᜃᜒ					ᜂ	ᜃᜓ

Note: Glyphs for r̥̄, l̥, l̥̄ and a few other glyphs are obsolete or very rarely used.

Numerals

List of Brahmic scripts

Scripts derived from Brahmi.

Historical

The Brahmi script was already divided into regional variants at the time of the earliest surviving epigraphy around the 3rd century BCE. Cursives of the Brahmi script began to diversify further from around the 5th century CE and continued to give rise to new scripts throughout the Middle Ages. The main division in antiquity was between northern and southern Brahmi. In the northern group, the Gupta script was very influential, and in the southern group the Grantha script with the spread of Hinduism spread Brahmic scripts throughout Southeast Asia.

• Northern Brahmic
  • Anga Lipi, 6th century BCE
  • Gupta script, 5th century
    • Sharada, 8th century
    • Siddham, 7th century
      • Phagspa, 13th century
    • Nagari, 8th century
      • Eastern Nagari, 11th century
      • Devanagari, 13th century
      • Kaithi, Sylheti Nagari, 16th century
      • Modi, 17th century
  • Nepal
    • Bhujimol, 6th century
    • Ranjana, 12th century
      • Soyombo, 17th century
    • Prachalit
  • Mithilakshar, 15th century
• Southern Brahmi (Tamil Brahmi, Kalinga, Bhattiprolu)
  • Vatteluttu
  • Grantha, 6th century
    • Dhives Akuru
    • Kawi script, 8th century
      • Batak, 14th century
  • Kadamba, 5th century
• Tocharian script ("Slanting Brahmi"), 7th century
• Ahom, 13th century
• Tai Tham (Lanna), 14th century
• Meeitei Mayek

Contemporary

script	derivation	period of derivation	usage notes	ISO 15924	Unicode range	sample
Anga Lipi	Brahmi	6th century BCE	Angika		U+0900–U+097F	देवनागरी
Balinese	Old Kawi	11th century	Balinese language	Bali	U+1B00–U+1B7F
Baybayin	Old Kawi	14th century	Tagalog, other Philippine languages	Tglg	U+1700–U+171F	ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔
Buhid	Old Kawi	14th century	Buhid language	Buhd	U+1740–U+175F	ᝊᝓᝑᝒ
Burmese	Vatteluttu	11th century	Burmese language, numerous modifications for other languages including Chakma, Eastern and Western Pwo Karen, Geba Karen, Kayah, Mon, Rumai Palaung, S'gaw Karen, Shan	Mymr	U+1000–U+109F	မြန်မာအက္ခရာ
Cham	Vatteluttu	8th century	Cham language	Cham	U+AA00–U+AA5F
Devanagari	Nagari	13th century	Numerous Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Bhili, Konkani, Angika, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili, Kurukh, Nepal Bhasa and sometimes Sindhi and Kashmiri. Formerly used to write Gujarati. Sometimes used to write or transliterate Sherpa	Deva	U+0900–U+097F	देवनागरी
Eastern Nagari	Nagari	11th century	Bengali language (Bengali script variant), Assamese language (Assamese script variant)	Beng	U+0980–U+09FF	বাংলা লিপি
Gujarati	Nagari	17th century	Gujarati language, Kutchi language	Gujr	U+0A80–U+0AFF	ગુજરાતી લિપિ
Gurmukhi	Sharada	16th century	Punjabi language	Guru	U+0A00–U+0A7F	ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ
Hanunó'o	Old Kawi	14th century	Hanuno'o language	Hano	U+1720–U+173F
Javanese	Old Kawi	16th century	Javanese language	Java	U+A980–U+A9DF
Kannada	Kadamba	16th century	Kannada language, others	Knda	U+0C80–U+0CFF	ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲೆ
Khmer	Vatteluttu	11th century	Khmer language	Khmr	U+1780–U+17FF, U+19E0–U+19FF	អក្សរខ្មែរ
Lao	Khmer	14th century	Lao language, others	Laoo	U+0E80–U+0EFF	ອັກສອນລາວ
Lepcha	Tibetan	18th century	Lepcha language	Lepc	U+1C00–U+1C4F
Limbu	Lepcha	18th century	Limbu language	Limb	U+1900–U+194F
Lontara	Old Kawi	17th century	Buginese language, others; mostly extinct, restricted to ceremonial use	Bugi	U+1A00–U+1A1F
Malayalam	Grantha	12th century	Malayalam language, Konkani language	Mlym	U+0D00–U+0D7F	മലയാളലിപി
Oriya	Kalinga	12th century	Oriya language	Orya	U+0B00–U+0B7F	ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲିପି
Rejang script	Old Kawi	18th century	Rejang language, mostly obsolete	Rjng	U+A930–U+A95F
Saurashtra	Grantha	20th century	Saurashtra language, mostly obsolete	Saur	U+A880–U+A8DF
Sinhala	Grantha	12th century	Sinhala language	Sinh	U+0D80–U+0DFF	ශුද්ධ සිංහල
Sundanese script	Old Kawi	14th century	Sundanese language	Sund	U+1B80–U+1BBF
Tai Le			Tai Lü language	Tale	U+1950–U+197F
New Tai Lue	Tai Tham	1950s	Tai Lü language	Talu	U+1980-U+19DF
Tagbanwa	Old Kawi	14th century	various languages of Palawan, nearly extinct	Tagb	U+1760–U+177F
Tamil	Vatteluttu	8th century	Tamil language	Taml	U+0B80–U+0BFF	தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி
Telugu		16th century	Telugu language	Telu	U+0C01–U+0C6F	తెలుగు లిపి
Thai	Khmer	13th century	Thai language	Thai	U+0E00–U+0E7F	อักษรไทย
Tibetan	Siddham	8th century	Tibetan language	Tibt	U+0F00–U+0FFF	དབུ་ཅན་
Tai Viet			Tai Dam language	Tavt	U+AA80–U+AADF

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Brahmic scripts

• ISCII — the coding scheme specifically designed to represent Indic scripts
• Indus script — the earliest writing system on the Indian subcontinent

External links

• Online Tool which supports Conversion between various Brahmic Scripts
• Windows Indic Script Support
• An Introduction to Indic Scripts
• South Asian Writing Systems
• Indian Transliterator A means to transliterate from romanized to Unicode Indian scripts.
• Imperial Brahmi Font and Text-Editor
• Brahmi Script
• IndiX: Indian Language support for the Linux Operating System
• Xlit: Tool for Transliteration between English and Indian Languages
• Padma: Transformer for Indic Scripts – a Firefox add-on

References